


Killer Kids: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys

by orphan_account



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Album), My Chemical Romance
Genre: Drug and alcohol references, Explicit Language, Mentions of Violence, Religious Themes, Self-Discovery, canon timeline? lol no, injuries, pretty well just backstory, self-indulgent bullshit, what year is it even
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-08
Updated: 2016-09-09
Packaged: 2018-08-07 09:34:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7710046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I was born of fire and light, into a world that knew no hours, only noise and decay. It was a time when humans were forced to revert to their most ancient of selves – fight, flight, or fall down dead in your tracks. I was born in the desert, under a sky crackling with static electricity and smoke. I was born into life on the lam. And I’ve been sprinting across the sand ever since.</p><p>//</p><p>Basically serves as a backstory to Danger Days, with a crapload of OCs because, as mentioned in the tags, this is self-indulgent bullshit. Have fun. Definitely not as artsy as the blurb would like to make you think.</p><p>\\</p><p>"Tommy, why'd you lie about the artichokes?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sweet Dreams, Dustangel

I was born to a zone runner at the tail end of the Helium War, weeks before the pig bomb dropped. Of course, they weren’t called zone runners then - there weren’t any zones. Bl/Ind made the zones after the war, each progressing further from their beloved Battery City, indicating the threat levels that their residents posed. 

My mother named me Maria, after her mother’s mother, because that’s how names worked then, I suppose. But I was brought into a world of fleeing and hiding, the child of a political dissident, and I was never called my name. I was the electric baby, the tire child, nicknames so only the people who knew me could find me. There was never time for familiarity, real-name terms, and so I never heard my real name beyond my mother whispering it in my ear when it stayed dark out for too long.

So when she disappeared, that’s all I had. 

They say she got ghosted, blown off the sand by faceless pursuers from the city, and I was left in a safehouse in Zone 4. The farmhouse of an old Russian woman (old enough that she knew and could remember what Russia was) fronting as a neutral farmer, who put me to work doing chores, always running into the neutral town nearby.

People noticed, of course. Knew I wasn’t born neutral- knew she wasn’t really neutral either. Townsfolk let the lady know when the Scarecrows were coming through town, gave her time to stick me in a barrel to hide until they left, counting out all the registered folks. Eventually word of me got out to some killjoys. Little Maria, the kid of a zone runner with no real codename.

When I was twelve, I finally had a clap with a crow. The killjoys saw, they knew what was going down, and they helped me out. But by then, I was on the city’s radar. They knew my face, I had to go postal, ditch Baba Yaga and everything she’d done for me. I was a full-fledged zone hopping gun-toting killjoy just like that. 

And so far, I’ve been loving every minute of it.

//

Flash forward eight years or so, and the wheels are greased just as good. I hide out in a shack in the hills of Zone 6, I’m friends with half the killjoys this side of Bat City, and I help Dr. Death Defying with his radio channel. He spins the beats and talks sweet, and I spread the good word of our Lord and Saviour, ourselves. I tell the news, and I have a damn blast doing it. The desert is the only home I’ve ever known, and I pledge allegiance to the sand every time I look in my dusty cracked mirror and see the faint rusty memory of my mother staring back at me.

But the thing about the desert is that nothing is ever the same way twice. The wind whips the sand dunes around, and the people follow. The culture’s a kaleidoscope, the bits always landing different to make beautiful artwork.

The day the bits began to blow around again for me actually started off pretty normal.

It started with Show Pony waking me up by dropping a package on me while I was still in bed.

“Do you ever actually sleep, or do you just have a motor that runs on biofuel?” I asked. I was never exactly one for sleeping in, but Show Pony took it to an extreme.

“I run purely on the energy generated by my electrifying looks and powerful personality,” they countered. “Open the package, smart ass.”

“Did I even say you could come into my house?” I grumbled, sitting up and pulling the package into my lap. It was a ratty cardboard box, clearly reused multiple times and likely to be reused many more. Nothing on it indicated what the contents could be, or who it was from, but that was pretty normal.

“No, ‘cause it’s not a house. If we’re being generous, it’s a hut.”

“And if we weren’t being generous?”

“I’d call it Maria’s Shit Shack.”

“I liked hut better.”

“Well sweetheart, you’ve got a dirt floor - I don’t think there’s any room to dislike it.”

In the package were some packs of dried Better Living Industries meals for Draculoids on missions out in the zones, and some water purifying tabs. There were also a couple cassettes addressed to Dr. D and some radiation cream for the rash on my legs that just wouldn’t go away. 

“Baba Yaga sends the cream and told me to make sure you use it, and the rest is from the freaky four from the diner, in exchange for the hot tip on the Scarecrow team running around causing trouble last week.”

“Ah, my biggest fans,” I pretended to keen in the attention. “Now if only you’d show me as much respect and affection as they do.”

Show Pony snorted and stood up. “You should see them when you’re not there.” They grabbed the cassettes and walked to the door. “I’ll drop these off with Dr. D, he’s been itching for some new tunes. Sweet dreams, dustangel,” they crooned sarcastically.

“Ah, piss off,” I groaned, and got out of bed, but they were already out the door. 

The day proceeded to be pretty normal through to the afternoon. I had my two-way tuned to the call-in line and got a couple of tip-offs about Drac patrol sightings and events going on around the zones. I cleaned house- Pony was right, it was a bit of a shit-shack. I even cooked up one of the dried food packs around lunch, and cringed. Apparently the expiry date was to be heeded. 

Evening, as the haze-obscured sun was beginning to near the horizon – that’s when everything went all to hell. That would be when a nifty little Trans-Am with fresh, messy paint pulled up to my door.

I went out to see who it was, gun strapped to my side, but relaxed when I saw the spider on the hood, and grinned when one of my all-time favourite people slinked out the driver’s door.

“Mikey fuckin’-“ I meant to greet him, but cut myself off instantly when I saw the face he made at me. I wondered why, until I saw the cargo in the passenger seat. “I see you brought a friend. Who’s this?”

Mikey shook his head. “Question of the day. All I know is he’s a new escapee from the city. Name’s Johnny, and I found him nearly dead on the side of the road out by Route Guano, on the edge of zones 5 and 6.”

Whoever Johnny was, he looked about half dead. He was slumped in the passenger side either sleeping against the door or passed out, and he was all beat up like he’d been in a real wreck. 

I shrugged at Mikey and went to open the passenger door. As I popped it open, the kid managed to sit up and go on the defensive. 

“Who are you?” he asked instantly, putting his fists up. Only problem was, he looked skinnier than a single one of my legs, and so pallid under his intense sunburn that his skin that had been covered was just about paler than the bright white Better Living Industries-issue clothes he had on. 

“Well they call me Magic Maria, I’m a friend of Kobra Kid’s. He took you here to get patched up and lie low I assume?” I offered to him in a gentle voice. Which wasn’t saying much, as I am not a gentle person.

The kid looked at me with judgemental, squinting eyes, until he relaxed and tried to get out of the car. “I guess I’m in no position to be turning that down,” he groaned, trying to step out.

So turns out his ankle was broken, and Mikey and I had to help him get into my place.

“Oh, you cleaned up. Were you expecting anyone?” Mikey asked.

“Ah, no. Show Pony was just pokin’ fun at me for having a dirty place earlier so I cleaned up out of spite, lucky you,” I patted Johnny on the shoulder as we lowered him into a chair. “Alright, tell Doctor Maria where it hurts.”

“You’re a doctor?” he asked, incredulously.

“Not at all,” I admitted, at the same time Mikey scoffed, “She can barely read.”

“Shit,” the kid groaned.

I shrugged and sat down in another chair, and motioned for Mikey to do the same in the other one. “This shit’s about the only option you’ve got for not dying right now. So you can be a dick about it and get buried around back tomorrow morning, ‘cause that’s how soon you’ll be dead, or you can cooperate and live to tell me what the fuck you think you were doing out in the furthest zones all alone.”

“I escaped from the city a couple of days ago. I ran and hid during the first night and day, then I got to a neutral town that I heard hides defectors. A family there gave me some food and water, and helped me hitch a ride as far out as I could get. Then I got dropped off at the border of Zone 4 and 5, then kept walking. 

“I guess I walked for too long in the heat, because I passed out. When I woke up at first, some people were around me, about to steal the clothes right off my back. I tried to get fight them off, and that’s how I hurt my leg. Then I passed out again. I just remember waking up in the passenger seat of Kobra Kid’s car, because apparently he makes a habit of picking up half-dead hitchhikers,” Johnny explained briefly.

“Did you give him any water?” I asked Mikey. 

Mikey shook his head. “The tiny bit I had left- he was kinda by the diner. I was heading in, not out.”

“The rehydrating powder’s in the blue tin on the top shelf,” I pointed. “Mix him up a bunch with one of the sealed water bottles, not the recycled ones.” I turned to Johnny and smiled, “Nothing but the zones’ best for our surprise guest, ain’t that right? Now Johnny, tell me. How old are you?”

“I’m sixteen,” he stated. 

Mikey and I looked at each other in surprise. “Aren’t too many in your age category looking to skip the city,” I said.

“No there aren’t,” Johnny said, and that was that. 

Mikey brought the bottle of now cloudy, soapy-lemon scented water. “Breakfast of champions, kid. This should rehydrate your innards.”

Johnny grabbed the bottle and started sipping it at very even intervals, clearly trying not to gulp it down too fast. While he did that, I prepped for surgery. I gave him a little potion after he was done drinking the bottle of water, to take the edge off. He took that all in one drink, like he had practice with medicine. I didn’t know much about the city, but I could imagine their health care was a little better than zone rats’.

“Christ, what was in that?”

“Moonshine and painkillers. Got the jar of moonshine as a gift from- you know what, that’s not important,” I said, looking at Mikey, who was looking just a bit too curious for comfort. 

“The hell is moonshine? Sounds like some magic medicine woman shit- oh my god you’re some magic medicine woman, aren’t you?” he was starting to freak out a little. That was a good sign, meant he was having certain thought processes return.

I rolled my eyes and pushed his shoulders back to the chair. “Sit your scrawny ass back down Johnny, I am no magician. If you want to see a medicine woman, I hear the priestesses of the Scarlet Witch are always looking for folks. Moonshine, my dear, is a type of alcohol. I suppose you’ve got a bit of that in the city, don’t you?”

Johnny frowned, but relaxed. “We did. I never had any, was too young. Why’d you give me a shot of booze, though?”

Mikey bit down a smile, and I shook my head. “You don’t know anything about frontier medicine, do you? It’s to take the edge off.”

“The edge off what?”

“This,” I shrugged, and pulled off his shoe in one motion. Good thing, too. If I’d had to pull again I think little Johnny might have passed out.

“GOT IT,” he wheezed, tears in the corners of his eyes. 

Next I rolled his shapeless cotton city pants up a bit so I could see his leg from the knee down. It was swollen like all hell, and the ankle had a funky purple-yellow welt on it. I gave Johnny a piece of folded up scrap paper. “You wanna bite down on this?” 

Johnny gave me a look of utter distrust, but at this point was too immobile to do anything about it, and bit down.

“Sorry kid,” I pressed gently on his ankle bone to set the break back up into the right position. Thankfully the break wasn’t too bad and the leg wasn’t too fucked up, so it was real quick getting it back into place. 

Also, Johnny screamed, and Mikey and I ignored it. “Can you hand me the splint from the medic kit right over there?” I asked Mikey. He pulled it out and examined it.

“It’s kinda… little?” he held it up. It was clearly for a wrist. A very skinny wrist that would soon have real doctors’ attention. 

“Alright, give me that and… some of the chopsticks from that little jar of them- that’s probably enough, and then the bandage roll from there,” and then I made a splint. It actually came out pretty nice, if I had to say so myself. 

By that point, the painkillers had kicked in, and when combined with alcohol, it was making him real sleepy. Sketchy, but it was what we needed. Mikey and I hauled him over to the one bed and plopped him down.

“Sweet dreams, dustangel,” I patted his hair, then Mikey and I sat down on my bed. “Alright Kobra Kid,” I looked Mikey dead in the eye. “What did your snake eyes see?”


	2. Tip Line Frequency

“I was cruising home, had just ran a quick errand to the neighbours to see if they had this thing Frank wanted for something he’s been working on for ages. So I’m going along, and I see this pile of something on the side of the road. I think ‘Oh shit, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure’, I thought someone had just dumped something on the side of the road. So I stop, get out of the car. It’s city clothes, can sell those to Tommy Chow Mein. I get closer, there’s a damn body in the clothes.

“So I go to pick up the body, give the person to the priestesses of the Scarlet Witch to deal with rather than let ‘em get scooped up by a drac patrol, and notice the body’s still fuckin’ breathing. So I put the kid in the passenger seat and look him over, and decide he’s gonna want to lay low and recuperate a bit, so I took him here. The only other option was the diner, and let’s be real – that place is about as restful as a hornets’ nest. Besides, you’re good at first aid… and shit.”

“Aw shucks… and shit,” I replied, bumping his shoulder. “But one question. Why didn’t you radio me first? You know I’m always tuned in to the tip line frequency.”

Mikey shot up and shouted, “Oh fuck!” and bolted towards the Trans-Am from where we were sitting against the side of my house.

“What now?” I asked him.

“I gotta tell Gerard I’m not dust on the side of the road,” Mikey said over his shoulder, getting into the car to use the two-way in there to call his brother. “Be right back.”

He left the door open, so from where I was sitting I could hear snippets of him briefly explaining to his brother what all had happened. Mostly it was just him apologising for not calling sooner. Gerard was a worrier, especially about Mikey- mostly about Mikey. 

Eventually he’d sated his brother’s nerves enough that he was able to turn off the radio and get out of the car, sitting back down next to me.

“Gerard was about to call into the tipline asking for people to look out for me,” Mikey sighed. “He knows you gotta be missing for six hours to do that.”

“He also knows I got a soft spot for you, kid,” I told him.

Mikey made a face. “Don’t call me kid. You’re like two weeks older than me.”

“Yeah, you’re just a kid,” I chuckled.

“Alright Maggie,” he countered, grinning. 

I faked shock, “That’s not even fair!”

“It’s part of your killjoy name!”

“So is ‘kid’!”

Mikey stuck his tongue out at me, so I knew I won. I loved it when that happened.

We sat watching the hazy sun fall over the backs of the hills for a moment, enjoying the moment between “toaster oven” and “too much air con” that the world alternated between during the day and night. Eventually I figured I should go make up the other bed for me and Mikey, since he was clearly staying the night.

“Hey, that wasn’t everything with Johnny,” Mikey said when I tried to get up.

“What do you mean? What else happened?” I asked.

Mikey sighed. “He seems pretty beat up for a kid on the run, right?”

I thought about it for a second. Most breakaways didn’t come out with broken bones, unless they had a clap on the way out if they stole a car or something. “He did say he got attacked on the road after he passed out.”

“And that’s what I’m concerned about. I don’t think he’s saying everything. Why would they beat him up so bad if all he had were the clothes on his back?”

“Maybe just some waveheads that were seeing something that wasn’t there?” I offered. 

“Maybe,” Mikey said thoughtfully. “The other thing was, when he came-to in the Trans-Am on the way here, he uh- he freaked out pretty bad.”

“How bad is pretty bad?”

Mikey looked down at his boots, now being lit by the light spilling from inside my place. “After he noticed he wasn’t lying on the ground anymore, he kind of looked around… you remember that farm that used to be around a while ago, the one that had rabbits? And how they’d look around with their beady little eyes like everything was trying to kill them, because everything was and they knew it? He did that, and screamed as loud as he could. He looked like…” he paused to find the words for a second. “He looked like I was gonna hurt him. No. He looked like I already had hurt him, and was comin’ back for more.”

By that point, Mikey was doing that thing where he talked without moving the rest of his face, just staring stoically ahead at the rocks in the distance. 

I sat next to him silently, not touching until he reached his arm out and put it around my shoulders. I put mine around his waist, and we just sat there as the world got darker and darker around us, sitting on the ground against the tin siding.


	3. Take Your Meds

There are worse ways to wake up than to Mikey Way lying next to you. One of those ways is being shaken awake by Mikey Way who is lying next to you, because someone is knocking on your door. 

“If I knew telling you to knock on my door would also make getting out of bed a requirement, I would’ve just told you to keep barging in,” I grumbled to Show Pony as I let them in. 

“I always forget about the Pony Express wakeup call,” Mikey groaned, sitting up. “Do you do this every morning?”

“Yes,” Show Pony said proudly.

“Yes,” I muttered grouchily. 

Then Show Pony almost sat on Johnny, which reminded us that Johnny was a person in my home. 

“Who the hell is that?” Show Pony shrieked as Mikey and I lunged towards them as they tried to sprawl out on the bed.

“That’s Johnny. Newly revived roadkill,” Mikey clarified.

Pony eyeballed the kid for a minute, then got up real close to his face. As far as we assumed, the kid was out cold. We were wrong. 

Johnny sort of grumbled at the commotion and blinked a couple times, only to see Show Pony right next to his face, in their… Show Pony-esque, neon painted, glittery glory. He sat up defensively and made a pained expression, accompanied by the sound “gnuuah”. Then he saw Mikey and I and I guess must’ve remembered everything that had gone down.

Johnny groggily blinked a few times and looked at me and pointed at Show Pony. “Who’s that,” he asked, although the way he said it didn’t really have a question mark on the end. 

“That’s Show Pony,” I smiled as they continued to just kinda eyeball Johnny. It was even making me a bit uncomfortable. “Good friend. Cool cat. Pony, stop staring at the kid, it’s wigging me out!”

Pony stood up and nodded. “Seems like an alright kid. Still got some city air stuck in his lungs, but if he hasn’t bailed by this time tomorrow, I’d say he’s stickin’ in the desert.”

Johnny slowly pulled the blanket down past his legs to show off the gnarly splint. “It would be… exceedingly difficult for me to bail out of anything right now.”

Show Pony snorted, “Is that a splint made with chopsticks? God Maria, I’ll go get you some real stuff so the kid can at least move without worrying about his whole leg falling off. Is this how you treat all your guests?”

“Piss off,” I swatted at Pony’s arm. “You know you’re treated like royalty here.”

“Rat queen maybe,” Pony rolled their eyes. “I’ll be back in a bit. Try not to mess up anyone else’s legs.”

“I’ll mess up your legs,” I said, and stuck my tongue out at Pony as they skated out of my place.

Johnny watched as Pony skated past the window and out towards Dr. D’s station. Then he turned to Mikey and I and asked, “So who was he- she…?”

“Show Pony is neither a man or a woman. They are an experience,” Mikey said, and made a little sprinkly hand gesture. 

“Ain’t that the truth,” I muttered, and went to go mix up some more rehydrating solution. “Show Pony is a zone runner whose body is entirely made up of glitter, spray paint, and raw human energy, held together with a binder of weird scented candle wax and cactus juice.”

“In theory, their job is to deliver mail and news around zone 6, but mostly they just work on their outfit and annoy Maria,” Mikey shrugged. 

I handed Johnny a cup of the solution and some painkillers, which he recognised, and eyed them with caution. “These are Better Living brand drugs. Do you guys take these? They mess with your brain, make everything soft and- and wrong!”

“No no,” I shook my head. “See, BLI might put their mind warp gunk in everything in the city, but they can’t do that to the neutrals they supply out here in the desert, nothing would ever get done because they’d all just want to move into the city. So they drug a select few items that most of the neutrals use every day- toothpaste, cooking oil, most of their soy-based products. So they’re still reliant on BLI, but they’re also functional for desert life, and they can supply the city with their farms and stuff.”

“So how do you know what’s clean and not?” Johnny asked, still suspicious. 

“Some kind, kind science types down in Zone 2 ran tests on pretty well every type of product that comes out of Bat City and isolated the specific drug that sets your brain to zombie mode. Now they just test for that, and if it’s free, you’re good to go.”

Johnny looked a little relieved, but still held the pills away from himself. “Are you sure these are good?”

“Johnny, I can personally guarantee these pills are fine. You took some last night, crushed up in that shot of moonshine, and you’re fine today, aren’t you?”

Johnny turned the pills over a couple times in his hand. “I- I guess.”

Mikey stood up and grabbed the bottle of pills off the table, and shook one out into his own hand. Before I could say anything, he swallowed it dry. “See? I’m fine.”

I stared at Mikey for a second, and he stared back at me blankly. 

“Can I talk to you outside?” I said. This was not a question.

Mikey and I walked outside. I was actually surprised that he followed me, to be honest. “What the fuck was that?”

“What? The kid needed to know the pills were safe, so I showed him!” Mikey defended himself.

“So what about the kid! You don’t just go popping pills like that!”

“Popping pills- you’re acting like I’m an addict, like I need to be protected. Is this because of what happened with Gerard?”

I didn’t answer, because of course it was. 

Mikey closed his eyes and took a breath. “I. Am not. My brother.”

My heart sank as I realised what he was thinking. That I was comparing him, like everyone else did. “Oh, Mikey. I know you’re not, you’re you. And that’s why it matters to me. I care about you.”

Mikey shook his head, but his expression relaxed. “I care about you too. So that’s why I’m saying this, you don’t need to worry about me. I’m… I’m in a good place right now. And as far as we know, so is Gerard.”

That was enough explanation for me, so I wrapped my arms around Mikey in a quick hug. “I’m gonna need you here under the methane sky for a bit longer. If anything, just to help me deal with Show Pony.”

“DID SOMEONE SAY MY NAME?!” Pony screeched from behind me.

“Jesus,” I said with a start, Mikey jumping a little. “You are one sneaky motherfucker.”

“Just greased the wheels, thanks,” Pony said with a shit-eating grin. They held out a boot-looking thing with some straps. “Anyhow, here’s a splint for your Johnny kid. Dr. D used to wear a pair of ‘em, when he was still on crutches. Before your time.”

I grabbed the splint and went inside. The two followed me in and sat down at the table.

“Alright Johnny,” I sat down at the foot of the bed. “Did you take your meds?”

Johnny nodded and held up the bottle in his hand. “Yeah. Thanks Kobra Kid.”

“That’s good because we’re going to be touching your leg again and it’s probably going to hurt.”

Johnny made the kind of face that made me think he might’ve preferred being left on the side of the road the night before. “How many of those pills am I allowed to take?”

I looked over at Mikey and Show Pony. Mikey waved his hand in a more-or-less gesture and said unsurely, “Like max three or four? Four you might experience kidney failure, but you won’t feel your arms for a few hours.”

Johnny weighed the odds in his mind for a moment before popping the lid off the container again and shaking two more out. “I have two kidneys, I suppose it’s about time I use them.”

After he took those, I rolled off the bandages and took off the chopstick splint – which, in comparison, did look a little ridiculous compared to the plastic boot one. 

By the time I was done carefully sliding a sock over Johnny’s foot and strapping the splint on, he had a glazed over look and his whole body was floppy, like a jacket someone had just tossed onto the bed. “Hey buddy, you still there?” I asked him, patting his cheek.

“Yeah…” he sounded like he was going to say something else, but just trailed off.

I wasn’t sure what else to do, but when I looked over to the table the other two gestured to keep him awake, so I kept tapping his cheek. “Alright kid, so where are you from?”

“B5 Prefecture in Battery City,” he answered promptly, if not a little like he had something gooey in his mouth. Based on what I knew about the city, this was in the north east quadrant of the city’s dome, not particularly affluent, but not exactly the Lobby either. 

“And where are you now?”

Johnny thought for a second, which I initially interpreted as a bad sign until he said groggily, “I’m in the desert hut of a girl who seems to think that slapping them in the face is the right way to treat her guests.”

That set Mikey and Pony right off, laughing just a little longer than necessary. But on the bright side, Johnny couldn’t really feel it when I dropped his leg down onto the bed just a bit less gently then I could’ve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For more of this and other fun trash, head to sweet-dreams-dustangel.tumblr.com


	4. Your Favourite Idea

“Well it’s dark-eight-thousand, so you know what that means, folks. I’m Magic Maria, here with the tip-offs. 

“First up, calendar says that tomorrow’s probably a Tuesday, which means you should get your ass in gear and go to church, that is, if you’re a patron of the Temple of Sand. Yep, they’re having their monthly shitswap over in Zone 4. Get there real early, they like to get things done before it gets deadly hot out.

“Now the word coming in from Zone 2 says there’s gonna be a major influx of canned tofu that’s passed the science centre’s drug tests – can’t say as much for the people that operate the place, I see you working on those new strains of zone weed, you ain’t fooling nobody – so if you’re in the mood for a bland meal replacement that isn’t also dog food, talk to your friends at one of the markets for a lead. And if you don’t have any friends who work at any of the Zone 2 and 3 markets, get some!

“Next up on the list, we got a tip called in from someone in Zone 5, you crazy motherfucker – she says keep your head down low if you’re around the newly-erected San Salvador camp, there’s been a few drac patrols around there looking to stir up the ant hill. Now I gotta ask, what is that, San Salvador version five? Six? Dr. D’s holding up eight fingers and shaking his head, y’all need a new name. That one’s cursed my friends. At least keep it down with the explosions for a while, would ya?

“Last but certainly not least, we got the weather report brought to you by our trusty amigos hiding out in the city. Yep, the boys of many names are back at it again, helping us out and risking their hides to do it every single day. The short one says watch out Zone 6, looks like acid rain is headed your way. Well shit, that’s me, thanks for the warning pal. He also mentioned a radiation cloud passing through 2 and 3 around five in the morning tomorrow, so stay inside as well as you can and sleep with a dust mask on if you got one. Geiger counters shouldn’t get into the red, but maybe stick your infants and the elderly in a few more layers than normal. 

“Well, that’s all from the tipline this afternoon, and remember, your voice might be loud, but if nobody’s listening to the news, then you might as well shut the hell up. Call in if you got something important to pass on. You all know the call-in frequency, and if you don’t, it’s high time you made some better friends. This has been Magic Maria, here’s the Doctor...”

//

About a week passed where Johnny didn’t get out of bed too much on his own. Mikey went home, but Pony was around a little bit more than normal, and we made sure to keep Johnny hopped up on painkillers. After that week though, Johnny started to get antsy.

“You’re one tough little shit, all things considered,” I said, after Johnny asked Show Pony to ask Dr. D for a pair of his old crutches. 

“I’m starting to get better,” is all he would say, although he and I both knew that the bottle of painkillers got emptier and emptier every day.

During that time, I got to know quite a bit about the state of the city (alarming at best), who he was (city boy), and what he made of desert life, from what he could see. The funniest things had to be what he had to say about me, though.

“So your killjoy name is Magic Maria, and it has your real name in it because people knew you as a killjoy before you had a nickname?”

“The name just sort of grew organically on me since everyone just knew my real name anyway. You can’t force anything.”

“It sounds like the name of a pornodroid,” Johnny helpfully pointed out.

“Didn’t know pornodroids had names,” I countered. 

“I didn’t know you had ever met one.” The kid had a point there, I had never been into the city, so I hadn’t ever met a droid. Goes to show you about making assumptions I suppose.

“Didn’t know you had either.”

“I have, though. Met pornodroids. When I lived in the city,” Johnny explained. “I snuck into the Lobby a few times before I got out of Battery City. It was mostly droids, actually, who helped me find my way to the zones.”

“Didja meet any juvie halls?”

Johnny smirked “If you mean the self-flagellating people that choose to stay in the city and help kids like me, then yes. A few.”

“Did you ever hear from a group called the Youngbloods?”

Johnny shook his head. “I did not.”

“Car Crash Hearts?”

“No.”

“Bat City’s Suitehearts?” 

“Still no.” 

“Overcast Kids?” 

“Are these all names for the same group?”

“Boy, uh…” I struggled to think of anything else they went by. Then I remembered the name of their whole network they had going within the city. In getting out he must’ve at least heard the name. “What about Clandestine? Clandestine Industries?”

Johnny finally perked up at that one. “Wow, I never thought I would hear that name again! One person I spoke to one time whispered that name to me, and told me I was never allowed to say it again in Battery City, or around a neutral.”

“Well, sounds like Clandestine is still as much a mission statement as it is a name,” I mused. “Or a deathwish. Good to know they’re still good though. We don’t get too many transmissions out from there, ‘cept the weather and the emergency signals.”

“I can imagine why. The walls have eyes in Bat City,” Johnny shook his head. “Anyhow, the reason I asked about your name was because I don’t really know how to go about making my own name.” 

“Well… what’s your favourite idea? Mine is being creative!” 

“How do you get that idea?” 

“I just try to think creatively.” 

“I’ve never been creative a day in my life. The city is all monochrome and rounded edges.” 

“Well… what really fires you up? Gets your heart pounding and eyes sharp? What excites you, moves you, fuels you? What made you leave the city?” 

Johnny thought for a moment, his face slipping into blankness. “Honestly Maria?” he said looking me in the eyes. His face hadn’t changed expression. “I have no idea. All I know is that the black and white weren’t cutting it for me.”

I take a breath. “Then honestly Johnny? I think you should be finding that, searching it out before you search for the superficial details. A name is a name and it’s a powerful thing, but if it doesn’t have a face, and a body, and a heart to back it up, it’s just a shell.”

Johnny noddehd and looked at the door. “Thanks. I’m gonna think about that.” He got up and grabbed his crutches, and hobbled towards the door. “I’m going to be outside for a bit.”

“Right on,” I gave him a thumbs-up, and got up from my seat at the table as well. “Sometimes the best answers come out of the sand.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you know the drill. head to sweet-dreams-dustangel.tumblr.com with any questions/comments/concerns/hate mail/headcanons/marriage proposals/friend requests. i also realize my update schedule is fucked. thanks for noticing.


	5. The Radiation Sweats

“What the fuck, Maria?” Johnny exclaimed as he looked into my mouth, the flashlight making my gums feel hot. I’d had a sore tooth for a bit, so I had asked him to take a look at it.

“Oh shit, is it bad?”

He looked at me with the same look I’d got the time Dr. D had realised we’d been talking for twenty minutes without it being broadcast, because I’d forgotten to plug the microphones in. “Have you ever even held a toothbrush?”

I thought back. I remembered sometimes when I was a little kid, Baba would visit a tooth person in town and bring back a couple toothbrushes. She’d give one to me and we’d use them a few times a week together until the bristles were flattened to the point where it was like rubbing a plastic handle against your teeth. But that was years ago. “I think maybe the last time was three or four years ago. It’s hard getting supplies all the way out here in Zone 6, some stuff just becomes real low-priority.” 

Johnny looked extremely concerned for a moment, then shook his head. “You need to go to a dentist.”

That word rang a distant, dusty bell, but I couldn’t place what it meant. It sounded like “scientist” though, and I wasn’t having any of that. “Johnny! You’re the last person I woulda thought to say that, being from the city! You’ve seen what they do, get into your brain and turn you into an experimental animal!”

Jonny looked at me and blinked once. Twice. Three times. “You don’t know what a dentist is, do you?”

Well then I just felt stupid. But I’ve learned over the years not to pretend to know something you don’t- that’s a sure-fire way to get fucked right up. I licked my lips and shook my head a little. “Well uh- not exactly. But it sounds like ‘scientist’.”

Johnny shook his head. “A dentist is a tooth doctor. They help you so your teeth don’t fall out.”

That’s when the connection was made. “Oh! The tooth person Baba used to visit when I was a kid- that was what he was called! A dentist! He made sure the metal parts of her teeth worked good.”

Johnny looked almost like he was in pain. “Have you ever been to one?”

“Nah,” I shook my head. “The real tooth people with fancy tools and things that travel from town to town are only for registered neutrals. I think somewhere in the killjoy camps there’s got to be some tooth people floating around who know what they’re doing, but I’ve never been. I think most of what they do is pull rotten teeth though.”

“Well then they’d be right up your alley…” Johnny muttered, but I heard him. “Maria, the insides of your back teeth look like they’re stuck full of caramel, your gums look like you’ve been chewing cactus spikes, you’ve get a chipped front tooth that’s rotting, and a back tooth that looks like it’s trying to claw itself out of your skull, it’s just covered in black spots. Also, your breath smells like an animal carcass.”

“Is it this tooth that’s turning black?” I point to the one that’s been bugging me.  
“Yep.”

“Well that’s the one that’s been hurting bad lately,” I sighed. “I guess I’ll tell Dr. D, see if he knows of anyone who knows anything about teeth. Get ‘em pulled. I mean, I suppose I could even just get D in there with a pair of pliers-“ Johnny looked at me like I’d just suggested bangin’ a cactus. “Or hey, maybe I can find someone who can get me a fake one. Get a big gold tooth put in, it’d look pretty cool, wouldn’t it?”

Johnny made some fiddly gestures with his hands before choking out, “Of all the problems with that idea, honestly, I think I the biggest one would be how you would even afford a gold tooth.”

He had a point. While me, Dr. D and Show Pony weren’t exactly starving, the radio station was pretty well donation-based, ‘cept for the odd jobs Pony and I would pick up sometimes. Besides that, I had a crappy vegetable patch behind my shack, but it wasn’t exactly a profitable venture. I thought for a second back to everything I’d ever done in exchange for something. I’d occupied some… interesting positions. “S’pose I could go back into ‘hairstyling’. Did that for a bit when I was fifteen.”

Johnny went blank for a brief moment, then came back just as quick. “You were a hairdresser?”

“Hardly. I shaved kids’ heads for five carbons a pop, and that was like, five years ago.”

“Do- do you still have your razor?” Johnny asked, looking a bit uneasy.

I thought about the boxes of junk I had under the beds. I certainly hadn’t gotten rid of the electric razor, so it was probably in there somewhere. “Full head of hair got you too hot?”

Johnny shook his head. “No, it’s uh… look at the roots of my hair.”

I peered in real close at his scalp, and saw it. About an eighth of an inch from his roots, his hair changed from the black that I’d assumed was natural, to a softer brown. “Now what the hell is going on there?”

“It is Better Living’s new program called ‘Amalgamation of Personal Aesthetics’. Essentially, to reduce individuality, everyone who does not naturally have black hair dyes their hair black. It is the worst. Everyone hates it, even the smug BLI smiles on the news shows.”

“So you wanna ditch the city colour?” I asked. 

Johnny nodded. 

“Well, get in the bathroom and take off your shirt, I don’t have anything to put over your shoulders,” I told him, and went to dig out the old razor. “And bring a chair to sit down on.”

From outside the bathroom I could see that Johnny was still as skinny and gangly as all get-out, although his ghosty pale skin was finally getting some colour into it. When I walked into the bathroom though, I noticed some red bumps on Johnny’s back. I recognised them – they were the same rash I’d been getting on my legs. “You’ve got a radiation rash,” I pointed out. “On the top of your back, up to your neck.”

“Oh good lord,” Johnny instantly touched it. “What do I do?”

“Same as I do, I guess,” I shrugged. “Once a month I get a radiation shot that flushes the radioactivity out of my body as best it can. And then in between, I use a cream Baba Yaga sends me. But it’s a little concerning that you’ve got one so soon… have you been covering up when you go outside?”

“…mostly,” Johnny muttered as I turned on the razor and started cutting away the hair. ‘

“Well you gotta get better about it,” I shook my head, hair falling to the floor. 

“Maria, I literally only own this outfit,” Johnny pointed out, gesturing to the now dusty city clothes.

I considered that for a moment. “We should… we should probably get you something new.”

“That’d be nice,” Johnny nodded. For a while he just watched as the hair fell from his head. I was trying to do a nice job, and I hadn’t done it for ages, so I was taking my time. After a bit, he asked, “So does everyone take those shots?”

“Mostly people living out in the higher zones,” I replied. “Closer to the radiation belt. The closer you get to the city, the less radiation there is, so the less you need to worry about it.”

“Do they work?” Johnny asked. “The shots? Do you get radiation sickness?”

I let out a short sigh. “You know what Johnny? I don’t know. I’ll probably die of bone cancer before I’m forty, if I don’t get ghosted first. But until then, my skin’s still attached and my lungs are still working, and that’s all I can ask for.”

The last of Johnny’s hair fell to the ground and I handed him the little mirror. He looked at himself for a moment before giving a quick nod. 

“I’ll ask D about the tooth person when I go over this evening for the tip line update,” I mentioned as I started sweeping up. 

“Hey Maria?” Johnny said, setting the mirror down. “Thanks. Thanks for… everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey tell me whether you loved it or hated it and why here or at sweet-dreams-dustangel.tumblr.com
> 
> the alternative name for this chapter was "hair and teeth" but for some reason i decided that sounded gross


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